Monday, January 30, 2017

Pineapple Quilt Block Tutorial

I'm back today with a tutorial on how I made my Pineapple Quilt Block. You can find other tutorials with a Google search, but I haven't seen one using this method. I found it quite easy and accurate.

As I mentioned in my last post, I seem to have discarded the fabric requirement list for this quilt. Sorry about that! I know for the print fabrics, I needed more than 1/2 yard {more like 3/4} for the prints that run diagonally through the center as there are more blocks with those colors.

Note: This is my original EQ7 plan. In reality, I changed the block's center square to gray.

Block size 10" finished {10 1/2" unfinished}

Cutting instructions for one block:

Gray for center square: 1 square 3 3/8" (or 3 5/16" to be exact). I like to use my On-Point ruler for cutting these types of on point squares that don't fit exactly to our regular ruler measurements. With this ruler, you would use the 4" finished diagonal measurement.

White: 2 squares 2 7/8", cut once diagonally (You can cut these larger, like 3" or 3 1/4" if you like to trim/square up your center Square-in-a-Square unit)

Stitch and Flip Triangles are made by drawing a diagonal line on the wrong side of the 2 1/2" squares, sewing on the line, trimming to 1/4" seam allowance and pressing out.

1- Make the Square-in-a-Square by sewing the 2 7/8" triangles to opposite sides of the gray square. Press. Sew triangles to the remaining two sides and press. If you've oversized the white triangles, trim the unit to 4 1/2" by placing the 2 1/4" mark of the ruler on the center points.

7 - Repeat Step 3 again to create a white triangle at each corner of the block.

And there you go! No paper piecing or tricky trimming!

When I made my quilt, I started at one corner and made the blocks for each diagonal row together. This made it super easy to keep track of the colors. Once the blocks are made, there's no rearranging. Just sew the straight rows together!

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions in the comments and be sure to check back here for my answer if you're a No-Reply Blogger.

I notice you quilted it on the diagonal, have you ever had any problems with the quilting coming undone because of this? I ask because I saw on a blog once (yes,one doesn't tell much!) that the quilting stitches popped in certain areas and she claimed it was due to quilting on the bias and all that entails. It got me thinking, but I have not found anyone else saying this. Thanks for sharing your method! I shall try a block this afternoon and see how it goes!

I made a quilt that alternated 9" snowball blocks with 9" nine patch blocks. I had it quilted on the diagonals through the nine patch squares in both directions and with motifs in the snowball block centers. The diagonal stitching began breaking after a few years. Later I read (on a blog) that the blogger had issues with diagonal quilting if the diagonal stitching was spaced greater than 1" apart. I have no further diagonal quilting experiences to confirm or refute this but I did have diagonal stitches breaking with wider spaced diagonal quilting.

I purchased the On Point ruler a couple of years ago and I haven't touched it since. Thank you for the tute as well as reminding me that I should break out the ruler and give it a go on a future project.